This blog will contain an assorted mixture of whatever that pours out of my mind and finds expression in words.. I love the beauty of words, I love my friends and above all I love the dark pearl of Dwaraka, the one and only Krishna

The previous section saw Rama conquering fourteen thousand warriors with Khara, Dooshana and Trishiras in the vanguard. The leader of the rakshasaas and the monarch of Lanka, Ravana, hearing about the disaster to his kin, decided to wreak venegeance on Rama and sought the help of his maternal uncle Mareecha who was a master at deception. Maariicha knew about the valour of Rama and cautioned Ravana against attracting Rama's wrath. Ravana ignored Maariicha's advice and forcibly took him for company and went near the hut of Rama. Maaricha was forcibly employed to take the guise of a golden antelope and go near the abode of Rama, and Seetha, on seeing the antelope got attracted to it and requested Rama to capture the animal for her. Rama went in pursuit of the deer and was led to far off distances by the wily Maaricha. Finally the demon was felled by Rama's arrow but at the time of death he cried out , "Lakshmana, Seetha, I am in danger" mimicking the voice of Rama. Seetha believed that Rama was in real danger and forced Lakshmana to run for the rescue of his elder brother. When Seetha was alone, Ravana disguised himself as a mendicant sage and when Seetha went near him to receive him believing that he was a hermit, captured Seetha and tried to fly away to Lanka in his Pushpaka Vimaanam. The elderly falcon, Jataayu, an old friend of Dasaratha, attacked Ravana in the air, but was cut down and injured mortally by the sword of Ravana.. Rama came back to the hut and saw the falcon on the throes of death and found Seetha missing. Jatayu was alive just to inform about the abduction of Seetha by Ravana. Rama performed the last rites of the falcon and utterly desolate, wandered round the forest in search of Sita. Deep in the forest he saw an ogre which had only torso, named Kabandha, and slayed him. The Kabandha was a celestial being and got its deliverance from a curse on being killed and burned by Rama. While returning to heaven, Kabandha requested Rama to visit a pious hermitess name Sabari.. Taking the advice of Kabhanda, Rama visited Sabari, living in the Ashram of sage Matanga, near the Rishyamooka hills. While proceeding further after being offered devoted worship by the blemishless Sabari, Rama happened to see a monkey named Hanuman..(Maybe this is one of the greatest encounters between two godheads that could ever have happened). Hanuman led Rama (and Lakhmana) to Sugriva, the exiled brother of the king of monkeys, Vaali. Rama narrated to Sugriva all that had happened culminating in the abduction of Seetha. Sugriva was prepared to help Rama and the two cemented their friendship in the presence of fire as witness. Sugriva then narrated his own tale of misery.. He was exiled by his elder brother Vaali from Kishkinda, the kingdom of monkeys. Vaali had also forcibly taken Sugriva's wife Ruma. The enmity between the brothers arose like this. Vaali was once having a very long duel with the mighty demon Dundhubhi. During the fight the two had entered a cave and Vaali had instructed Sugriva to close the entrance of the cave and wait for his return. Sugriva waited for months but there was nothing to be heard of Vaali. Once he saw blood oozing out of the closed cave and believed that Vaali had died. So Sugriva went back to Kishkinda and made himself the King. After very long fight with Dundhubi, Vaali emerged victorious in the end and throwing out the caracass of Dundubhi, came back to Kishkinda in triumph. When he found that Sugriva had occupied his throne, he became enraged and the powerful elder brother chased out Sugriva in a bid to finish him off. Sugriva knew that Vaali was prohibited by a curse from climbing the Rishyamooka hills and hence retreated to these hills along with some of his most faithful ministers like Hanuman and Jambavaan. Sugriva extracted the promise from Rama that he would kill Vaali and restore Kishkinda to Sugriva in return to his help to gain back the abducted Seetha. However Sugreeva was skeptical about the prowess of Rama to vanquish Vaali, and as if to test him, showed him the huge skeleton of the demon Dundubhi. Rama smiled slightly and just nudged the huge skeleton with his big toe and the skeleton flew away a full ten yojanaas (yojana is the indian measure of distance...the distance that could be covered by a bullock cart in a day's time..and there are different views placing one yojana at five to eight kilometers). In addition Rama also razed to earth seven huge palmyrah trees with one arrow and the impact was so huge that the hillocks nearby as well as the nether worlds upto Rasaathala trembled in unison. Some of the incidents narrated above are not covered by the slokas above but are availble in detail in other parts of Ramayanam. These have been referred to briefly only to give continuity to the narrative. The most significant incident in this part of the story is the meeting of the two titans Rama and Hanuman.